Borders Resurfacing: River Freewrite

August 9, 2017, 1:50 pm, San Lorenzo Park.

the sun beats down without breeze, legs too warm in sweatpants, tiny yellow amaranth seeds clinging to my shins, evidence of where I’ve been.  the rapid sound of Spanish: I look up and see two men rolling by on their bicycles, chatting as they ride.  I wanted to walk along the river today, not on the raised concrete paths and pedestrian bridges like freeways that shuttle more privileged bodies above working class POC communities, but close enough to touch the water. 

I hate myself a little now, how my skin pulls and shrinks away as I sit on the dried up grass next to a homeless encampment in this city park.  how easily I empathize with the Chinese who once lived here, who were once seen as trash, unwanted, dirty, littering the riverbanks, and how hard it is for me to exhale and relax on this riverbank where people make their home.  I unpeel my burrito, and the salt overwhelms my mouth, lips and face purse tightly, unable to taste anything but discomfort.

the signs warned me not to leave the paved path, but I ventured among the late summer plants, green and dried out and taller than me.  deep purple brushes rising with strong straight spines, small pale bursts of lavender and white, a glory of dandelions.  the insects were huge: giant fireflies buzz-sailing through the brush, a miracle of a yellow butterfly so close to my head.  ducks with brown tufted heads and drab bodies, dipping and feeding, tail-feathers in the air.  I was alarmed at how low the water was after just one week: rocks exposed in the riverbed, resembling the Salaach more now.  the strange phenomenon of the current flowing both ways, a two lane watery highway around a rocky divider.  traces of people, but uglier than the stray crushed can and burnt rocks of refugee fires at the Salaach.  a stray black shoe with a sensible heel.  newspapers.  cardboard arranged carefully as a bed.  shampoo and juice bottles and cans of chicken soup.  faded sweat shorts, wadded up and dusty with river sand.  a pair of sturdy black sneakers, placed carefully in the shade of a shrub.  and a book with a red cover: North Toward Home.

whom do we think of as disposable, as dirt?  migrant bodies, homeless bodies, refugee bodies?  as I tread through the plant-life, causing small quivers tremors disturbances beneath my feet, picking my way between mud and slime and scrappy wildflowers, what keeps me from seeing this river -- and its people -- as beautiful?